Seeing But Not Sketching the Whole

 

7/30/26 Roosevelt and U-District neighborhoods

Walking to an errand in the University District via the Roosevelt neighborhood, I spotted a crane at a construction site of the new “Roosevelt Manor” (ostentatiously declaring its establishment in 2027 [eyeroll emoji here]). Attracted as I am to cranes, I usually like to sketch their entire inverted-L shape. This time I thought I’d zoom in on two small features I usually don’t observe closely: The tiny elevator that carries crew members up and down, and the small pulley and chain assembly that hooks onto things it hauls. Without context, they seemed more intriguing than they usually do.

Amused, I decided to fill the rest of the page with two more things that were entirely visible to me but deliberately drawing only some parts. Not drawing the pointed top of Blessed Sacrament’s steeple took willpower – that’s the part of all steeples I enjoy drawing the most!

Despite that, I had great fun challenging myself to avoid drawing the whole of what I see. It’s not easy! My brain always wants to complete the picture.

Process note: This type of walk-sketching – having no clue what I will draw until I see it – is still one of my all-time favorite forms of sketching on location. A mile and a half feels like nothing when I’m continually looking for the next sketch. How fortunate I am to be so easily entertained!

Discovery Park Vista

 

7/28/26 Puget Sound from Discovery Park

The closest I have ever seen a Cooper's hawk!

Seattle’s largest park and full-on forest in the middle of the city, Discovery Park is an urban gem of hiking trails, open meadows, cliffs and streams. After my unguided wandering of the park a few weeks ago, I invited Nilda to go with me last Tuesday. Much more familiar with the park than I am, she led me to a vista of Puget Sound at the western bluff. Though breezy and partly cloudy, the afternoon was a lovely time to walk, talk and sketch.

Bonus: We spotted a Cooper’s hawk (ID’d by the Merlin app by its call)! The park is a favorite among birders.

Once More at Thornton Creek

 

7/27/26 Thornton Creek, Northgate

I seem to have taken it on as a personal summer mission to introduce my sketching friends to Thornton Creek! It’s such a serene yet fully accessible gem in the middle of otherwise bustling Northgate. This time I met Mary Jean and Roy there on a sunny but breezy morning.

As much as I was cowed by all the foliage at Kruckeberg Garden last week, Thornton Creek is somehow friendlier to me. There’s plenty of multi-layered textures and subtle color differences to be endlessly challenging, yet there are also enough solid shapes to help guide the compositions. It also has a lot more light. This time I looked straight down into the winding creek at the center of the park (above).

With the few minutes before our meetup, I sketched a favorite Japanese maple tree (at left) that I’ve captured at least once before.

“Fast and Fun” with Jonathan Tune

 

7/26/26 Edmonds, 20 min. 

Before hitting the streets, we practiced very short sketches
 from a still life form.

A workshop with a focus on quick sketching that is both expressive and accurate? Yes, please! Offering “Sketching Fast and Fun” through ArtSpot in Edmonds, Jonathan Tune shared a method of urban sketching that reminded me of studio life drawing. Models usually begin with very short poses, then the poses get progressively longer. In the same way, we began by making a series of sketches from one minute to 20 in postcard and business card sizes. Sometimes we even used our non-dominant hand.

In between, Jonathan gave demos of varying lengths so that we could see how he would approach various subjects. While sketch durations of one to five minutes could be loose and inaccurate, we were training our eye and hand for greater accuracy when we had more time.

I had never been in a workshop in which every sketch exercise was timed! It was an interesting approach that pushed all of us out of our comfort zones. The sketch at the top of the page was my longest sketch of about 20 minutes – the last of the workshop. Others shown here are of varying durations (I was working too fast to note the duration on the pages, which would have been interesting to see now).

Jonathan’s favorite (and recommended for this workshop) drawing tool is a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen, which is one of my favorites, too; no learning curve there! That’s what I used for all of these sketches.

Jonathan giving a demo in the ArtSpot parking lot

The Scavenger Hunt is On!

 

7/25/26 Scavenger hunt at South Lake Union

Months ago, I viewed a YouTube video by Teoh Yi Chie showing an urban sketching bingo game that USk Singapore had put on. With sponsored prizes and a huge turnout, the game looked like so much fun that I was inspired to do something similar with USk Seattle. Bingo, however, has an element of chance; it’s not enough to simply sketch the objects – you had to get a certain number in a row. It would also be a lot of work to create multiple variations of bingo cards. I got an easier idea: An urban sketching scavenger hunt!

Shortly afterwards, I took a wander through one of my favorite sketching neighborhoods: South Lake Union. Within an easily walkable area, I jotted 20 things I saw (many of which I sketched myself). Some were specific, like the Space Needle, while others were left open to interpretation, such as “a cylindrical building” (SLU has more than one) or “something yellow.” I had so much fun developing the game!

The hunt was on! Last Saturday, a terrific turnout of USk Seattle met near the Amazon Spheres for the game: Whoever sketched the most items on the scavenger list during the three-hour outing would win. Prizes were donated by USk Seattle admins and Gabi Campanario of Sketcher Press – art supplies, sketchbooks and published art books. Thankfully, we had a lot of prizes, because I had under-estimated how many sketchers would be so successful: Eleven sketched all 20 items!

Since I had made the game myself, I didn’t compete, but I took my leisurely time sketching many of my favorites on the scavenger list. Compared to all the hard-working participants, I felt like a slacker: I even took a lunch break!

It was inspiring to see people helping each other figure out clues or find the subjects – a collaborative spirit instead of competitive. I got so much positive feedback about the game that I’d like to make it an annual summer event in varying locations!

These intrepid participants found and sketched all 20 scavenger items! (Not pictured: Ching Hung)

Pacha Collective

 

7/23/26 Pacha Collective

I’d been marching through a long list of what I call death management tasks. None were painful, difficult or surprising; all were tedious, time-consuming and sometimes required visits to government offices (Social Security required me to appear in person with our original marriage license). Even processing the death certificate – that most official, undeniable declaration that the love of my life is gone – felt abstract and completely detached from the man I said good-bye to.

Methodically checking off my list the way I used to manage projects at work, I finished in eight days. (Well, two documents still need to be notarized during a brief meeting with our attorney, but my part is done.) I celebrated the way I used to celebrate each task or milestone during my massive downsizing project: A pastry and a sketch, of course!

When I’ve poked my nose into the Green Lake neighborhood’s Pacha Collective on other occasions, the tables were always full. On this comfortable day following our heatwave, I guess people wanted to be outdoors; the café had several open tables. Unfortunately, the one I got wasn’t at a very good angle to sketch the café’s centerpiece: A full-size VW bus, complete with seating and tables inside! I wanted to show more context so that it was clear that the bus was inside the café. I’ll look forward to doing that next time (and someday, I’d like to dine inside the bus, too).

Ironically, the coffee cake I chose came from Macrina Bakery,
where I have given up trying to get a table!

What I did have a good view of were a couple of patrons on the café’s far side. The man in back chose to stand while he worked at his laptop, giving me an unusual composition.

A Green Oasis at Kruckeberg Garden

7/24/26 Kruckeberg Botanic Garden

 

A dark-green, shady oasis, Kruckeberg Botanic Garden in Shoreline would be ideal on a hot day – the garden felt like it was at least 10 degrees cooler than on the street. As the temps were only in the high-60s and low-70s last Friday with USk Seattle, I was actually a little chilly, thanks to the shade of all those old-growth trees. Still, it was serene and comforting to be within the lush, forest-like atmosphere.

Serene, that is, until I started looking around for something to sketch: All that green is formidable! While I enjoy the challenge of sketching layers of foliage (I even recently boldly stated that I’m no longer intimidated by it), Kruckeberg Garden is whole next level of layers of foliage! One challenge was looking for pockets of light to contrast all the dark green. While my first sketch (above) was that attempt, I don’t really care for the composition I ended up with to get that light.

It took me quite a while to find a scene for my second sketch. I kept looking for a single tree to anchor the composition, but many grew close together or just didn’t catch my eye. I finally spotted Mark sketching next to an enormous tree with an interesting shape; he gave the tree scale, which I always think is important in a composition.

Process notes: To avoid being cowed by all that green, I channeled my inner Orla Stevens and Roy, who both encourage simply embracing the joy of mark-making. That was enormous fun!

In the first sketch, I also tried to think like a painter: Before doing anything else, I spread water all over the paper, then applied a yellow Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayon wet-in-wet with the “licking” method. That served as a warm underpainting for everything else. I like the effect, and it easily eliminated spots of bright paper white that wouldn’t have felt right in such a dark yet warmly lit environment.

The newly constructed walkway/ramp makes the garden's lower level much more accessible.